Decipher, p.41
Decipher, page 41
Soldiers across the encampment were edging forward now, not particularly sure they knew what was going on. Suddenly a snatch of Cantonese Scott could understand came his way.
“He thinks we’re deserters,” the epigraphist explained. “He thinks we’re trying to steal this carrier and escape.”
“He thinks right,” Hillman replied.
But the conversation was cut short as the entire vista of black tents lined up before them suddenly exploded into livid flame. Soldiers were blown sky high. Munitions caught in the blast reacted with volatile spitting flame for meter upon meter.
And it was all the excuse Gant needed to hurl his knife directly at his would-be captor.
The blade buried itself deep into the young man’s left eye-socket right up to the hilt as the Major glared at Matheson. “Go!”
The engineer crunched the vehicle into gear and shot forward, tearing through the tents and leaving nothing but devastation in his wake. Gant dived for the dead soldier’s gun, coming back up on one knee to lay a burst of suppressing fire while Hillman grabbed Scott by the arm.
“C’mon, Professor! You may know a lot, but do you know how to drive one of these things?” the marine yelled, indicating one of the snowmobiles.
Scott shrugged him off, because as it turned out, he did. Slinging one leg over and punching up the power, he slipped the throttle out and careened off into the carnage.
Hillman, Michaels and Gant were not far behind.
And neither was the People’s Seventh Armored Division, Elite Guard.
“Fire one more!” Brandes ordered.
“But our people are comin’ straight at us!” one of the privates manning the mortar yelled.
“So fire it over their heads!”
The soldier complied, turning one of the Chinese command trucks into a screaming ball of orange fury. But the devastation was far more than they could have expected. The ground opened up under that entire section of the encampment, turning sheet ice into a seemingly bottomless rift valley. Volcanic steam from deep within the glacial interior blasted out.
Matheson shifted gears. “That explains it!” he tossed back over his shoulder.
“Explains what?” Sarah scowled, grabbing hold of a handrail on the ceiling to try to stop herself from being thrown across the rear section as the APC bounced along.
“Why the Chinese didn’t camp closer to Jung Chang. That satellite image of Atlantis showed the city was several miles across—the size of Manhattan. We’re directly above it, even this far out from Jung Chang. The ice must be fractured for miles all around here. When Atlantis powered up it started melting the ice underneath.”
“Great,” Sarah replied. “So Atlantis could be sunk all over again.”
“Shit,” Matheson realized. “I never thought of that. What the hell do we do if we can’t get down there?”
As the Ski-Doos of Scott and the others dodged in and out of the tents, following in the wake of the receding APC, they suddenly found themselves cut off and had to double back, finding makeshift ramps they could use as jumping-off points. Under a hail of crossfire they each jumped the chasm, landing heavily on the other side.
The marines operating the mortar quickly disassembled it and stuffed it away for transport as the APC thundered across the ice, swerving into a skid and kicking up ice. Sarah threw the rear doors open. “Get in!”
No one needed telling twice. They scrambled to their feet, the marines laying down. cover fire as the scientists went first.
Hackett pulled himself up into the front passenger seat, saying: “Well, this is nice.” When suddenly he became aware of several low thudding sounds peppering one side of the vehicle, like kids throwing stones. “Hey! We’re being shot at!”
Matheson glowered. “No shit, Sherlock!”
“Ouch!” Pearce screeched as he bashed his arm trying to sit up. November tended to him as he tried to stem the blood oozing from a wound on his arm.
“Come on!” Sarah screamed at the marines out the back door. “Get in, we gotta go!”
“Negative!” Brandes hollered back. “We gotta stay and cover those guys or they’ll never make it!”
“You don’t get up here now—you’ll never make it!” But as she said it she was already starting to regret it as an explosion not far off rocked the entire vehicle and blasted two of the marines apart.
Sarah was in shock. She didn’t know what to do. Frozen, she had no comprehension of the fact that Brandes had slammed the door shut in her face and was twisting the lock closed from the outside.
The APC shook again. Rocked by another explosion.
Matheson shot a look over his shoulder. “What’s going on? Are we done?”
Hackett took a closer look and realized Bob Pearce was lying on the deck of the vehicle bleeding badly. “Let’s get outta here!” he yelled.
Matheson shoved it into gear. They were away.
Scott dodged and weaved his way past scrambling enemy soldiers and crumbling ice flats in an attempt at a military zigzag. But in the end it was easier just to drive straight through any obstacles.
Coming up on his left flank was Gant, who slammed into one soldier, ripping the rifle from his arms. He swung the weapon back behind him and fired successive bursts as a cover fire until the entire clip was spent.
But even though every shot was off target, they all counted and they had a clear throughway by the time they had picked up the tracks of the APC again.
They swerved up to where the marines were waiting.
“Brandes, Jackson! Everybody! Climb on board—now!” Gant bellowed.
Hillman glanced over his shoulder at the approaching Chinese forces who had taken to their other Ski-Doos and APCs. Even two of the helicopters were powering up, their rotors starting to spin. “Oh Christ, c’mon, you guys, we gotta get the fuck outta here!”
Eventually the marines moved. Brandes even sat upright. But they weren’t going with their commanding officer. They would never be going anywhere again.
They were dead. And they were being used as shields by the Chinese Special Forces Commandos who were lying in wait underneath.
Michaels was the first to react, plowing through his fallen comrade and crushing the commando caught underneath. The sharp metal tracks on the rear end of his vehicle spun and ripped the clothes off the dead soldier’s chest, tearing into his flesh before catching traction again and zipping the marine off after the APC. The other three quickly followed on behind.
They passed by an ice mound, oblivious to the fact that two bemused Chinese scouts on their own Ski-Doos were sitting on top. As their radios kicked into life they swung their vehicles around and set off in pursuit.
“Where are we going?” Matheson demanded as he struggled to keep control of his vehicle at such a high speed.
Hackett turned the map upside down and around again, but try as he might he couldn’t make head nor tail of it. “It’s uh, all in Chinese,” he revealed, folding the document he’d found secreted away inside a compartment into a more user-friendly size. “I can’t make it out. Hell, where’s a linguist when you need one?”
“Well, they gotta have a sign for north or south or some such shit. It’s universal.”
Hackett held the map up for Matheson to see and jabbed a finger at all the squiggles. “Not in China!”
“Hey, Bob’s bleeding really bad, back here,” November cried out. “Anyone see a medical kit?”
Hackett scratched around. “Uh, no. That a problem?”
Pearce gritted his teeth as he held his arm. There was a blackened piece of sharp metal protruding from his forearm. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes, it’s a fucking problem!”
Sarah winced when she got a good look. “Strong words, Bob. We’ll think of something.”
“Excuse me?” Matheson interrupted.
“What?”
Matheson gesticulated at the windshield. “Which direction?”
Everywhere they looked there was just a vista of barren, desolate snow and ice.
“Gee, I don’t know. Forward?” Sarah suggested, spotting a case with a small red cross marked on it, hanging on a far bulkhead. She got to her feet.
Matheson swerved the vehicle to avoid more disintegrating ice. And that was when he saw it. That familiar sky he’d seen only a few weeks before. Vast waving green fronds undulating and glowing across the darker regions of the atmosphere where charged particles from solar storms were caught in the magnetic field of the earth. The Aurora Australis.
Except this time the swirling green mass wasn’t just swaying across the sky, it was actively gathering into a maelstrom that mimicked a twister. Like the ancient Chinese myths said—a giant two-headed snake was in a battle with the elements of wind and rain.
In a vast green funnel that appeared to undulate with eddies of magnetic flux, billions of tons of charged particles were swirling down to ground level and beyond, touching down in the distance and being transported the sixty or so miles from space down a tube that was constructed from the invisible forces of the will of the universe itself.
It was like a glowing umbilical connected to Mother Nature. And Atlantis was feeding.
“Holy Mother,” Matheson murmured. “I think I just found Jung Chang.”
It was a disturbing thing to discover there were no wing mirrors on Ski-Doos. And that it was impossible to judge just how close the enemy was when there were no images looming large within them. But glancing back over his shoulders just wasn’t much of an option for Richard Scott. For one thing he was too scared, and for another the terrain was simply too uneven to allow him to take his eyes off it.
All he knew was, he was being shot at. A lot. And that was enough. He could hear projectiles whizzing past his ear, was aware of Gant riding up in his periphery and heading off up front. When—
Wham! The ground exploded in an incredible eruption of fire and ice so fierce it jolted the Ski-Doo, causing him to run pivoted on one track for a moment. Which was a stroke of luck for the simple reason that it caused him to run wide of the crater opening up before him and precipitating the creation of a mass of jagged fissures.
But just as Scott was getting a handle on his situation, one of the growing ice ravines took a sharp turn straight in front of him, causing the epigraphist to grind to a halt while he figured out a way through the maze. As he did so he took a quick look back.
And wished he hadn’t.
A line of Chinese-manned Ski-Doos were bearing down on him leaving high plumes of snowy mist in their wakes while high above were aircraft. Firing.
“Jesus, what the hell are they doing?” the Professor shrieked, although it was obvious—they were trying to kill him.
Up ahead, where the anthropologist should have been traveling by now, the snow opened up into another fireball as the two sleek black attack helicopters let rip.
Scott cranked his machine up again, discovering to his horror that as the ice cracked up all around him he was in a race against time to beat a fissure out of the start blocks. As Scott raced along, so too did the crack in the ice. Deep and dark. Jagged and relentless. As it widened it released blinding steam, and Scott knew it was only a matter of time before the phenomenon changed course into his path and brought his journey to an abrupt end.
He shifted down a gear, giving the engine a kick and closed his eyes in hope as the fissure suddenly darted under his vehicle.
But nothing happened.
Miraculously the cracking ice didn’t open up wide enough to swallow his vehicle whole, but his situation had not improved. For creeping up all around him were the shadows of the Chinese military …
Up ahead Scott spotted the APC swerving in and out of ruts in the ice, while silhouetted against the swirling green plasma funnel, he could see its turret gun up on the roof.
Of course!
He swept his eye over the dash. Located the radio and thumbed: “Gant, can you hear me?” He saw Gant snatching up his own unit and responding. Good. They were on the same channel. “It’s me, Scott! Tell somebody on that APC to man that turret gun! And show them how to use it, fast!”
Sarah rotated in the tiny, cramped turret seat, swinging the gun around to face the rear. There were little numbers stenciled all around the inside rim of the turret like on a clock. When she reached the number 6 she stopped.
She glanced back at Hackett who was tearing open a box of ammunition. “This is all we’ve got, so make it count,” he advised.
Sarah ignored him as she followed Gant’s instructions on her headset. There was a flat oblong plate on the upper side of the weapon with two screw-like catches on either corner. She unfastened them quickly. Flipped it open to reveal a contraption on a hinge. She guessed this was where she put the bullets. Hackett handed her the chain of ammo, each around the size of a finger, and clipped the first round into the housing. She pushed the unit back in, fastened the plate and reported back to Gant.
“All right!” he shrieked in quick reply. “You’re locked and loaded. Line ’em up in the cross-hair and keep both hands on the gun at all times. It’s got a severe kickback. Less resistance on either grip and you’re gonna wind up swinging yourself around.”
Sarah didn’t wait for further instruction. Bringing the first helicopter up into full view she lined the sight. Squeezed the trigger.
And nothing happened.
“Shit! Have we got a jam? What’s wrong with this thing!”
Hackett spied the gizmo at the side. “Safety! Let the safety off!”
Sarah felt like an idiot, reaching around the side and taking the catch off. She quickly brought herself back into alignment again.
And fired.
Scott whooped for joy as a stream of lead spat from the twin-barreled turret. It was like a blast of fire as every fifth bullet, a tracer round, lit up like a rocket guiding Sarah’s aim. But despite the assistance she was still a lousy shot.
The helicopters dodged and weaved. The Ski-Doos split up and zigzagged. It slowed them down plenty but it was hardly going to cause them to turn back.
And then as suddenly as the firing had started, it spluttered to a stop. They’d run out of ammo. Looming up at them was the devastated remains of Jung Chang. They had arrived. Which was a problem because any moment now they would have to stop. And in so doing, they’d be sitting ducks. What the hell were they going to do? The pursuit of the Chinese military machine was relentless. They were getting closer every second.
Directly in front, the ground was opening up all around them. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. They were trapped.
In fact, what on earth were those sharp black protrusions rearing up out of the ice straight ahead? The APC had already rolled past them, but Scott was lagging far behind and by the time he reached them his path was blocked. Despondently he brought his Ski-Doo to a halt and raised his hands slowly.
He was staring down the barrel of a gun.
Facing what appeared to be a small mobile cannon, Scott gingerly got off his ride and tried not to make any sudden movements. There was no way he wanted to get shot again.
It appeared to be an automated device. Mounted on a long metal arm, it was attached to something hidden under the snow, while protruding from its side was a tiny camera. Obviously it was some kind of remote-controlled device.
As the drone of approaching vehicles grew ever more ominous behind him, the crackle of a speaker hissing to life from the machine was the last thing Scott expected.
In a tinny voice an American accent asked quickly: “Name?”
Scott was perplexed. “Uh, Scott,” he said. “Richard Scott. Linguist with the UN Inspection Team.”
Silence, followed by: “Oh, you’re Scott. Would you mind ducking down, sir? Only you’re in my line of fire.”
Scott didn’t ask any further questions. Throwing his arms out he hit the deck as the device the gun was attached to rumbled and shook itself from under the snow.
All along the ridge on either side of Scott, similar machines were rearing up out of dugouts they had carved out of the snow and ice. There were around fifteen vehicles in all, like a line of miniature tanks. Essentially they were converted Yamaha Breeze “all terrain” buggies, with tracks in place of tires. They bristled with gadgets: high-powered zoom surveillance gear, thermal imaging equipment. They were well-equipped little machines. But it was their armory and their preparedness for war which was most impressive; their array of guns and missile launchers.
These machines were built for war. And on their sides they had written: SaRGE; the Surveillance and Reconnaissance Ground Equipment robot. They were the very latest in U.S. military remote warfare. And they had a bite like the enemy wouldn’t believe.
These were what Gant and Dower had been talking about. The goddamn cavalry.
Servos whirred into life, targets were locked onto, weaponry was fired. And within a split second, under a barrage of sustained fire that loosed in a massive arc, one of the attack helicopters tumbled from the sky in a streaking fireball while the menacing Ski-Doos were thrown into disarray.
Then, while several units kept up the battering; other SaRGE units retargeted their sights. Having analyzed the geology of the situation, they fired at the ground some distance off, opening up a massive crescent-shaped rift in the crumbling ice that would require some terrific detour to bypass, or the construction of an artificial bridge.
The Chinese halted in their tracks, uncertain what to do next.
While Scott crawled behind the nearest SaRGE vehicle, and collapsed with relief.
descent
[After years of studying complexity discovered] “It’s very hard to do science on complex systems.”
Jack D. Cowan, Mathematical Biologist, University of Chicago,
Co-Founder of the Santa Fe Institute, 1995
USS JEFFERSON CITY SSN-759
“Captain, I’m getting something.”
It wasn’t said with much force or forethought. Just with a plain frankness that had come to be expected aboard the 6,900-ton Los Angeles class nuclear attack sub.
Penoit was a quiet man. He was the type of skipper who said so little that when he did speak, his crew listened.
